Why is women's clothing sizing so arbitrary?

It’s not at all arbitrary. It is carefully designed to be confusing because marketers don’t want larger women to be turned off by “plus sized” clothing, and they don’t want young, skinny teenagers to be put off by being grouped with their larger elders.

Models used to wear a 10. Now an 8 is “huge” and models are a size 4. Real women are generally around a 14 to 16, but they don’t want to know it.

@pdworkin: Honestly though, in this slightly more practical era for women, it might make more sense for manufacturers to start measuring waist, inseam, neck diameter, etc. There is nothing nicer than a perfectly sized shirt (in my experience). However, I found shopping for the women in my life tends to be difficult and generally the clothing has to either be stretch, resizeable (with ribbons and whatnot) or else it is ill-fitting.

What I mean by arbitrary is that a 0 in one brand is not necessarily the same as a 0 in another brand. If there was an industry standard that correlated numbers and letters to actual measurements then that would make sense. But there doesn’t appear to be.

Women’s clothing sizes are analogous to university grading systems. Professors calculate, in numbers, the percentage of homework turned in and correct answers on tests then CONVERT this percentage (number) to a letter. This conversion is not necessary – grades could be given as the actual percentage and therefore would be more accurate. But they are not. One profs A can be another profs C, and so grading is a bit inconsistent when you have more than one prof teaching the same class or when you compare one university’s performance to another.

Maybe it is because I’m an analytical numbers person obsessed w/ efficiency, but I just think sizing by actual garment measurements would be more efficient and accurate.

They know what sells. You need to buy bespoke tailoring. No one is going to make rack shopping easy for you, because they sell more product when it’s difficult.

You are probably right about that, pdworkin. Confusion seems to be a recurring theme in sales.

Afterall, if the consumer is confused about what they need to buy… Who better to tell them, than the salesperson? It’s the same strategy that “tech”-savvy people try to use when selling computers. I put quotes, because it only works on those who are NOT tech savvy, and in most cases the people using this tact aren’t either. They tend to use a lot of jargon, that if you prod deeper, they don’t really know the meaning of at all. I had someone at best buy try doing that with me once… I’m an A+ Certified Computer Technician and make my living as a Network Support Specialist.

Needless to say, I broke his sales-spirit.

But this does indeed seem to be the trend. If you can’t sell them on facts, dazzle them with bullshit (as my digital media teacher always told us).

Try buying women’s shoes online.

I have 4 pairs of jeans that all fit nicely and are each a different size. I think it’s weird. The more expensive jeans are the smaller sizes and the cheapest ones are the biggest. I only like wide leg or boot cut jeans, so they are all basically the same cut. Its never made any sense to me. I got some pajamas for Christmas that were my normal size what size I usually go for when shopping and they were so big the pants fell down. It would be wonderful if designers could get together and streamline their sizes!

What aggravates me the most is how all the sizes are “growing”. I know why the manufacturers do it, but still… I wore a size 12 when I was 14. Now, I’m 2” taller, at least 20 lb heavier, & sometimes a size 8 is too big. Arg!

@knitfroggy : Yes, I’ve noticed that the pricier the brand the smaller the sizing runs! I’m not sure why that is. It sucks for me because I sometimes cannot even fit the smallest size, so I usually end up paying a lot for the more expensive brands because they are truly the only ones that will fit. I am now contemplating going to a tailor for dress pants because I’ve been told that I’d be paying about the same as what I pay when I buy retail and then have to take it to the tailor to be fitted anyway.